Thread by @andrewmichta

🧵This post won't be about int'l security affairs, but about what the here and now at home. I recently drove through the American South on my way to Florida. A few observations that are frankly painful: This young Republic feels old, and the once proud middle class looks poor.1/9

America's interstate system is in disrepair. The same goes for our power grid, with power lines hanging from crooked wooden poles even as you drive through suburbs in major cities. Roads are potholed and patched up, here and there; often not. There is trash along the highway. 2/9

At the same time, I encountered wonderful people in small communities where I stopped for the night - hardworking Americans struggling to make ends meet at service jobs, as manufacturing and processing has been offshored to Asia, gutting communities and making the young leave.3/9

The quality of the food that is daily fare in small town America should serve as a wakeup call-industrially processed, whether you buy it at a grocery store or order in a restaurant. Obesity seems rampant, with too many young men and women packing 300 plus pounds-looking ill. 4/9

All the while, Americans seem to be imprisoned by the all-pervasive algorithm, with our faces glued to cell phone screens. The digital walls companies have put up-whether in basic services, city administration or health care-make human interaction hard to come by and rare. 5/9

With sadness, I realized that the elites of this wealthiest country on earth (when you consider America's GDP) have pushed the once proud middle-class citizenry into an existence that borders poverty. We are fracturing as a nation. The idea of servant leadership has vanished.6/9

I also sensed the tide of anger rising in the heartland-I heard it in my conversations at motel receptions and at restaurant checkouts, as I watched exhausted waitresses work harder than I ever remember. What I heard in their personal stories was anger over elite betrayal. 7/9

This road trip made me realize that those learned debates in DC about the surge of populism in America miss the mark. This is not about politics as usual. This is as real as it gets-Americans who feel betrayed by globalists asking simply this: "Who owns this country anyway." 8/9

I've concluded that we are only at the beginning of our people's rebellion. That as disappointment mounts, anger will overflow. America's cultural DNA abhors oligarchy; it asserts that much is expected of those to whom much has been given. I hope the elites are listening. 9/End